I’m Sick of Being Blackmailed Into Playing Bass for Your Band

Dan, if you’re going to tell the company about my embezzling, just do it. I’m not playing another bass note for your stupid band. I’m using the term “band” liberally, since there isn’t a word that accurately describes the abomination you and your two cousins do with instruments. Whoever creates a word for it will undoubtedly be the Antichrist.

The truth is, I’d rather be in jail than lugging an 80-pound bass amp to what you describe as “venues.” A pharmacy’s parking lot isn’t a venue, Dan—it’s a parking lot. The fact that you picked up a prescription after we played also leads me to believe it was more of an errand than a show. And that outdoor concert area we went to last month sure seemed like a cemetery to me. I didn’t speak up, since I believed we were killing the concept of music and that seemed like a fitting place to do it.

Every day of the past week I’ve thought of walking into Mr. Walker’s office and admitting what I did. Anything to get my name off of The Sequel to the Beatles’ Bandcamp page. I keep telling you, that band name is going to get you sued and there isn’t a court in the land that would side against the Beatles.

I really don’t know how severe the punishment for embezzling $15,000 will be, but it can’t be nearly as bad as working out key changes for a song called “Rock Paper Scissors (ROCK!).” How can a song have two bridges and no chorus? I honestly think you found some sort of loophole in music theory. Every time we play a song, I worry the dissonance will cause the universe to collapse in on itself.

We are a horrible band, Dan.

It didn’t take me long to realize why you needed to blackmail someone to join your group. Bands normally choose a genre of music to play before they start writing songs. You, for some reason, chose a genre of literature: mystery. The thing is, people would only want to solve your “mystery music” so they could find out who to blame for making it.

You understand that I don’t like you or this band, right Dan?

I just really needed that $15,000. I’m not proud, but I did what I had to do. Things with my wife are better now. We have granite counters and finally finished our basement. However, having to lie to her that I chose to play bass in a band that storms bar stages on karaoke nights is far worse than admitting I’m a thief.

So this is it. I’m done. I am no longer in the band. I would ask you to wait to alert the authorities until I could explain my transgression to my family, but I know you have absolutely no sense of timing and couldn’t handle that. You’re like a human metronome, if a metronome destroyed rhythm and tortured tempo. which it doesn’t, but would if you designed it.

Goodbye, Dan. I leave my fate in your hands.

Oh, and by the way, the instrument you play is called an accordion, not a windy piano.